Wanderlust

Wanderlust is the desire to travel. The visual arts have often been a destination for the imagination, an opportunity to experience a place you have never seen. The “world vision” of this exhibition includes artists from: New Zealand, Vietnam, France, Russia, South Africa, China, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Morocco, and many points in North America. Join us for your summer getaway this year!

Liu Bolin (China): Liu Bolin’s photographs from the on-going series “Hiding in the City” transport the viewer to different landmarks of China – some well known, others more obscure. The idea of “disappearing” into a city is both political and philosophical in Bolin’s photographs.

Fiona Pardington (New Zealand): New Zealand artist Fiona Pardington’s large scale photographs re-document the life-castings of indigenous peoples encountered during French explorer Dumont d’Urville’s 1837 voyage to the South Pacific. Pre-dating the invention of photography, life-casts became the most accurate method to capture an individual’s portrait. This kind of research and observation ultimately informed the anthropological understanding of humanity of the time. Today, we are re-introduced to these images with a contemporary perspective.

Ian Van Coller (South Africa): “The work grew out of my experimentation with the use of quilting techniques based on traditions from Africa and Gees Bend, Alabama as a way to tell stories and record oral histories”. Also influenced by the “heroic” depiction of ordinary people in iconic union posters from the 1980s and 1990s (during the period of resistance against apartheid in South Africa), Van Coller uses this format to depict contemporary women in South Africa –primarily female domestic and farm workers.

Gilbert Garcin (France): Gilbert Garcin began creating his delightfully absurdist photographs of carefully assembled scenes after he retired at the age of 65 from owning a lamp company in France. Today, Garcin is nearly 82 years old and has been inventing imaginary scenes for his "Mr. Everybody" character for over 15 years. The photographs feature the same characters (the artist and his wife) interacting in handmade sets that the artist creates using simple techniques and materials such as scissors, glue, and wire. The resulting images have a wonderful sense of depth and lighting that would not be possible using a more digitally based process.